T-Shirt Market Bag

SUPPLIES & TOOLS:

• White Cotton T-Shirt
• Scissors
• Tie Dye Powder
• Ice
• Drying Rack & Sheet Pan
• Bobby Pin or Safety Pin

DIRECTIONS:

1. Soak t-shirt in water first, then ring out the excess water. Scrunch the t-shirt up, making a circular pattern or any desired pattern and set on top of a drying rack over the sheet pan, making sure to cover your work surface to prevent spills. Lay ice cubes on top of shirt, making sure to cover the entire shirt. Sprinkle tie dye powder over the ice cubes, alternating colors to create an interesting pattern. Allow ice to melt and shirt to sit for at least 10-12 hours. Rinse t-shirt in cold water and ring out excess dye and water until all the dye is washed out. Hang t-shirt to dry.
2. Once t-shirt is dry, lay the shirt flat on your work surface and use scissors to cut along the seam line of each of the arms of the t-shirt. Cut along the top edge to remove the neck seam of the shirt, and cut along each vertical side of the shirt, removing the outer 1" of the shirt. You should be left with 2 rectangular shaped pieces of dyed fabric.
3. Fold the bottom edge of the fabric (the edge with the seam still intact) up about 2" and use a hot glue gun to attach the fold closed, making sure the center of the fold is hollow and not glued.
4. Use scissors to cut 1/2" wide strips across the width of the fabric, leaving a 1-2" gap between the top edge and the cut.
5. Use scissors to cut a 1" wide strip of fabric from the edge of each piece of the fabric, then tie the two pieces together with a knot.
6. Attach a safety pin to the end of the strip of fabric and feed the strand of fabric through the hollow folds of each of the fabric sheets, making sure the strand is pulled completely through the fold and then attach the ends to your workspace tabletop using tape. Space the fabric out so it lays flat and even.
7. Gather two strips and tie a knot at the top to join them, repeat across the top with each of the strips of fabric.
8. Leave a 2" gap and gather two groups of fabric strips (4 strips total) and tie a square knot. Leave one group of strips not tied at the end, this will be used to secure the ends together at the very end of the process.
9. Leave a 2" gap and tie a crossover square knot using the 2 right cords from the first group and the 2 left cords from the adjacent group. Repeat the crossover square knot 8-10 times down the strips of fabric leaving 2" gaps between each knot.
10. Fold the macramé piece in half. Using the extra group of fabric strips that were left at the end, weave it through each of the layers of macramé on the end to secure them together.
11. Along the bottom edge, begin tying the ends of the strips of fabric together to create the bottom of the market bag. Make sure to tie most of them together to make sure there are no open gaps.
12. Use scissors to trim the ends of the fabric strips so they are all an even length.